LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES'Or^EEICA 




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MATTHEW ARNOLD'S 

SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

" The tale of tears derived from minstrel old." 

El5lTED BY 

LOUISE MANNING HODGKINS, 

Wellesley College. 




OCT BC1890, J 



LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN. 
BOSTON AND NEW YORK, 



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Copyright, 1890, 
By Lbach, Shewell, & Sanborn. 



C. J. PETERS & SON, 
Typographers and Electrotypers. 



Press of Berwick & Smith. 



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PREFACE. 



The object of this book is to familiarize the American 
student with a noble portion of one of the least known 
of the great epics, and to invite a more thorough 
appreciation of the simple classic verse of a poet whose 
hold upon us has been chiefly maintained through his 
ability to influence modern thought and to illustrate 
modern life. No worker can maintain acknowledged 
superiority in one line without manifest danger that his 
efforts out of that line become unheeded. " Sohrab and 
Eustum," an instance of Mr. Arnold's finest poetical 
idealism, is a case in point. 

In submitting this little work to the public, the 
author would acknowledge her indebtedness to the 
French version of Professor Mohl, and the English 
translations of Mr. Atkinson and Miss Zimmern. The 
thanks of the editor are due Messrs. Houghton, MifQin 
and Co., for the use of Miss Thomas's poem. 

Louise Manning Hodgkins. 

Wellesley College, October, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Interesting Dates in the Life of Arnold .... 1 

Biographical Sketch 3 

Famous Episodes of the Shah Nameh 11 

The Shah Nameh 12 

The Story of Sohrab and Rustum 16 

Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum 19 

After reading Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum ... 24 

Sohrab and Rustum. An Episode 25 

Introduction to the Notes 57 

Notes 59 



INTERESTING DATES IN THE LIFE OF 
MATTHEW ARNOLD. 



Public-School Life at Winchester and Rugby, 1836-40. 

University Life at Oxford, 1841-45. 

Winning of Newdigate Prize, 1843. 

Fellow of Oriel College, 1845. 

Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne, 1847-51. 

Publication of "A Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems," 

1848. 
Inspector of Public Schools, 1851-86. 
Marriage to Miss Wightman, 1851. 
Publication of " Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems," 

1853. 
Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1857-67. 
Publication of Lectures on Translating Homer, 1859. 
First Official Visit to the Continent in the L^terests 

OF Education, 1859-60. 
Report on Educational Systems of France, Germany, 

Holland, 1861. 
Publication of "Essays in Criticism," 1865. 



2 INTEBE STING DATES. 

Second Official Visit to the CoNTiNENt in the Interests 
OF Education, 1865. 

Publication of "Culture and Anarchy," 1869. 

Degree of LL.D., University of Edinburgh, 1869. 

Degree of LL.D., University of Oxford, 1870. 

Publication of "St. Paul and Protestantism," 1870. 

Publication of "Literature and Dogma," 1873. 

Degree of LL.D., University of Cambridge, 1880. 

Publication of "Irish Essays and Literature and 
Science," 1882. 

Lecture Tour in the United States, 1884. 

Publication of "Discourses on America," 1885. 

Third Official Visit to the Continent in the Interests 
of Education, 1885. 

Note. — Matthew Arnold published his poems over the letter " A " until 

1854. 



1im4 



MATTHEW ARNOLD. 



BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH. 

It is rarely that the son of a great man attains great- 
ness. An exception is instanced in the son of Dr. Thomas 
Arnokl of Kugby. 

Matthew Arnold, the eldest son of the famous master, 
was born at Laleham, Middlesex County, England, Dec. 
,24, 1822. His preparation for college was begun in his 
native village under the Rev. J. Buckland, master of a 
private school; continued under Dr. Moberly at Win- 
chester, and completed with his "fervent, heroic, and 
good" father at Rugby. It is interesting to note that 
the man who waged a ceaseless, noble war against bad 
diction is reported by his schoolfellows to have been 
well versed and practised in the curious Winchester 
vocabulary familiar to all acquainted with the classical 
school founded by William of Wykeham. That he was 
scarcely a popular boy is evidenced by the fact, that, to 
use one of those Winchester phrases, he was once "cloister- 
peeled" (pelted with bread-pellets), and otherwise socially 
ostracised by his mates, until his true manly spirit and 
undeniable triumphs in rhetoricals quite won over his 
youthful opponents. 



4 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

It is doubtful if the public-school system was adapted 
to him, and Dr. Arnold may have had his own son in 
mind when he wrote to Coleridge : '' But my deliberate 
conviction is stronger and stronger, that all this system 
is wholly wrong for the greater number of boys. Those 
who have talents, and natural taste and fondness for 
poetry, find the poetry lessons very useful; the mass 
do not feel one tittle about the matter, and, I speak 
advisedly, do not, in my belief, benefit from them one 
grain." 

Later at Rugby, he won the Balliol Open Scholarship, 
and in his first academic year at Oxford a second scholar- 
ship for excellence in Latin. During his university 
course he took several prizes, the Newdigate being the 
most significant ; and just thirty years after a similar 
honor had been conferred upon his father, he was elected 
Fellow of Oriel. But more to be valued than all prizes 
and preferments was the privilege to be at Oriel in 
the earlier years of colleagues and companions like 
Dean Church, Bishop Eraser, Professor Earle, Arthur 
Hugh Clough, Thomas Hughes, Principal Shairp, Chief 
Justice Coleridge, the Froudes, and, not least, to have 
heard — 

" The voice that weekly from St. Mary's spake, 
As from the unseen world oracular, 
Strong as another Wesley, to re-wake 
The sluggish heart of England, near and far; 
Voice so intense to win men or repel. 
Piercing yet tender, on these spirits fell, 
Making them other, higher than they were." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5 

These were the days, too, that saw this future Cardinal 
Newman secede to the Church of Eome, and Arthur 
Hugh Clough take his leave of academic life to seek — 

" The mountain top where is the throne of truth. 
It irked him to he here ; he could not rest. 
He loved each simple joy the country yields; 
He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep, 
For that a shadow lowered on the fields. 
Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep, 
Some life of men unblest 
He knew, which made him droop, and filled his head." 

— Thyrsis. 

He never came back — 

" To cut a smoother reed, 
And blow a strain the world at last shall heed ;"- 

but he remained long enough to affect the life of the 
few that, like Matthew Arnold, knew him, with a sym- 
pathetic charm never to be dissolved. Yet that which 
had "irked" Clough, the scholar-gypsy, was peculiarly 
grateful to Arnold, the scholar-poet, and is immortalized 
by many a beautiful tribute in his prose and poetry. 
Nowhere are these memories more nobly enshrined than 
in the close of the Preface to the first series of essays, 
where he says, " Beautiful city ! so venerable, so lovely, 
so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, 
so serene. 

* There are our young barbarians, all at play I ' 

And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her 
gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers 



6 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

the last enchantments of the middle age, who will deny 
that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling 
us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to 
perfection, to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen 
from another side ? nearer, perhaps, than all the science 
of Tubingen. Adorable dreamer ! whose heart has been 
so romantic, who hast given thyself so prodigally, given 
thyself to sides and to heroes not mine, only never to 
the Philistines ! Home of lost causes, and forsaken 
beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalities ! 
Apparitions of a day, what is our puny warfare against 
the Philistines, compared with the warfare which this 
queen of romance has been waging against them for cent- 
uries, and will wage after we are gone ? " 

Oxford did, indeed, "by her ineffable charm" call the 
young poet nearer to the true goal than did any of the 
preferments and honors that awaited his later life. It 
was here that he began his distinctive literary career, 
not as the apostle of pure criticism, but as a poet of 
"purest ray serene," How profoundly he felt the influ- 
ences of his academic life, — as an undergraduate, as a 
fellow, as the professor of English poetry, — is seen from 
the fact that he never could understand the men that — 



*' Eddy about, 
Here and there; eat and drink, 
Chatter and love and hate, 
Gather and squander, are raised 
Aloft, are hurled in the dust, 
Striving blindly, achieving 
Nothing; and then they die — 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 7 

Perish; and no one asks 
Who or what they have been, 
More than he asks what waves 
In the moonUt soHtudes, mild, 
Of the midmost ocean, have swelled, 
Foamed for a moment, and gone." 

Mr. Arnold had, in 1847, removed from Oxford to 
become private secretary of Lord Lansdowne. In 1851, 
an official appointment gave him life-long identification 
with the educational interests of England as an Inspector 
of Public Schools. No notes are more intensely interest- 
ing, in the sketch of a life, than those that are purely 
autobiographical, and this passage illustrates not so much 
what it intended, the good school inspector, as the warm- 
hearted, sympathetic, all-around man. It is an extract 
from the speech made at his retirement from the Inspect- 
orship : ^a do not think I have been altogether a bad 
inspector. I think I have had two qualifications for the 
post. One is that of having a serious sense of the nature 
and function of criticism. I from the first sought to see 
the schools as they really were. Thus it was soon felt 
that I was fair, and that the teachers had not to appre- 
hend from me crotchets, pedantries, humors, favoritisms, 
and prejudices. That was one qualification. Another 
was that I got the habit, very early in my time, of trying 
to put myself in the place of the teachers whom I was 
inspecting. I will tell you how that came about. Though 
I am a schoolmaster's son, I confess that school teaching 
or school inspecting is not the line of life I should natu- 
rally have chosen. I adopted it in order to marry a lady 



8 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

who is here to-night, and who feels your kindness as 
warmly and gratefully as I do. My wife and I had a 
wandering life of it at first. There were but three lay 
inspectors for all England. My district went right across 
from. Pembroke Dock to Great Yarmouth. We had no 
home. One of our children was born in a lodging at 
Derby, with a workhouse, if I recollect right, behind, and 
a penitentiary in front. But the irksomeness of my new 
duties was what I felt most, and during the iirst year or 
so this was sometimes almost insupportable. But I met 
daily in the schools with men and women discharging 
duties akin to mine, — duties as irksome as mine, — duties 
less well paid than mine ; and I asked myself, are they 
on roses ? Would not they by nature prefer, many of 
them, to go where they liked and do what they liked, 
instead of being shut up in school ? I saw them making 
the best of it ; I saw the cheerfulness and efficiency with 
which they did their work, and I asked myself again, 
how do they do it ? Gradually it grew into a habit with 
me to put myself into their places, to try and enter into 
their feelings, to represent to myself their life; and, I 
assure you, I got many lessons from them. This placed 
me in sympathy with them. I will not accept all the 
praise you have given me, but I will accept this : I have 
been fair and have been sympathetic." 

Meanwhile he was elected, in 1857, to the Chair of 
Poetry at Oxford, which he held until 1866. This date 
may be said to mark the dividing line between his 
poetry and prose work. The publication of his essays, 
travels on the Continent by state appointment in behalf 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 

of education, and, finally, his lecture tour in America, 
occupied the remainder of his busy, useful, and honorable 
life. Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge conferred upon 
him honorary degrees in recognition of his marked lite- 
rary ability. 

Le coeur au metier (the heart in the profession), a happy 
phrase, recalled to-day by his American hearers, is a bit 
of advice he had himself taken before offering it to his 
neighbors. His service to poetry, to criticism, to educa- 
tion, is of a character whose value will increase with the 
years. Those of us who are most honest in our convic- 
tions know that it was at the truth and not the severity 
of his unflattering criticisms of America that we took 
offence. His view of us, that we were a commercial 
people, whose enormous wealth could not compensate for 
our lack of ideality, made us angry because it was true ; 
yet we should have been less disposed to indignation 
had Mr. Arnold been able also to recognize that our 
present condition was but a stage in a life which each 
generation sees bettered. Thus he would have not only 
informed but inspired and invigorated us. 

Of his father he wrote in the poem of "Rugby 
Chapel": — 

' • Fifteen years have gone round 
Since thou arosest to tread, 
In the summer morning, the road 
Of death, at a call unforeseen, 
Sudden." 

No more prophetic words could have heralded his own 
unanticipated departure, an event which transpired Sun- 



10 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

day, April 15, 1888, at Liverpool, where he was tempo- 
rarily the guest of a friend. So ended a life whose 
attainments embodied his own definition of a cultured 
man, as one " thoroughly versed in the best things that 
have been said or written," and whose manly fearless- 
ness enabled him to tell the truth at the cost of per- 
sonal popularity, with an assurance that future years 
will perhaps admire with the same zeal that contem- 
porary years have disdained. i? 



/ 



FAMOUS EPISODES OF THE 
SHAH NAMEH. 



1. The test of the sons of Feridoun. 

2. The childhood of Zal. 

3. The test of the wisdom of Zal, the father of Rustum. 

4. The march of Kai Kaous to Mazinderin. 

5. The seven labors of Rustum. 

6. The defence of the white castle by the woman-warrior 

Gurdaf rid. (A part of the episode of Sohrab and Rustum.) 

7. Sohrab and Rustum. 

8. The fiery ordeal of Saiawush. 

9. The revenge of Kai Koshrau. 

10. The passing of Kai Koshrau. 

11. The fate of Isfendiyar. 

12. The fall of Rustum. 



THE SHAH NAMEH. 



SoHRAB AND EusTUM, the " tale replete with tears," 
is the finest episode of the Shah Nameh, or the Persian 
Book of Kings. The Shah Nameh is a poem of the 
heroic past, and bears the same relation to the Persian 
literature as the Iliad and Odyssey to the G-reek, the 
^neid to the Latin, the Nibelungen Lied to the Ger- 
man, and the Cid to the Spanish. As in all great epics, 
it is the story of the founding and development of a 
great nation. Rustum, like the Hercules of Greek 
mythology, and Siegfrid of the Scandinavian, is the 
masterful hero of its exploits, and his name is to-day 
perpetuated in the East in the names of towns, in themes 
of popular romance and songs, and in oral tradition. 
The number of his exploits is less than that of Her- 
cules, while their character is marked by the intrigue 
which belongs to the farther Orient. Rustum has a 
much less mythical character than Hercules, and the 
possibility of his improbable feats is increased by the 
continual presence and assistance of his wonderful 
horse Euksh. 

The scene of this epic is Central Asia, hence its very 
locality, with a conspicuous absence of seacoast and the 
impossibility of naval warfare, with its accompaniment 



THE SHAH NAMEH. 13 

of life and colour, gives this poem a local atmosphere 
and environment peculiarly its own. 

Despite this marked contrast, the student of compara- 
tive mythical histories would be delighted with the 
number of analogies to be found, first with other Orien- 
tal poems, and again with the epic poetry of the West. 
The motive of the Hildebrandslied, though representing 
a struggle between parental love and knightly honour, 
is strikingly similar ; while one is continually reminded, 
in this and other tales of Rustum's exploits, of the tales 
of Charlemagne and the Arthurian Cycle. In the Per- 
sian epic, as in the Iliad, the steed of the hero plays a 
more important part than in the stories of the West, 
while in the Western stories, love of woman forms a 
more distinctive element, — a fact quite consistent with 
the Oriental and Occidental estimates of the sex. It was 
the easier task for Mr. Arnold to select a single episode 
for the theme of his exquisite poem, since the Shah 
Nameh lacks the unity of the Iliad or the Odyssey, and 
seems to the casual reader to be not unlike the Morte 
d' Arthur, a succession of exploits by various heroes. 
But as in Spenser's " Faery' Queen," always the glorifi- 
cation of England, and ever the return of Arthur, are 
reiterated, so the glory of Iran a,nd the triumphs of 
Rustum continually reappear in the Eastern epic. 
There is a marked likeness to the Greek epic, too, 
instanced by the death of Rustum ; which, like that of 
Achilles, may be said to divide the poem into two parts. 

The Shah Nameh, as written by Mansur ibn Ahmad, 
dates back scarcely a thousand years. This most re- 



14 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

nowned of the Persian poets, a man of hnmble life in his 
native city of Tus, hearing that the King Mahmud de- 
sired that the history of the kings of Persia, which 
existed only in a collection of traditions and chronicles, 
should be preserved and immortalized in a rhythmical 
history, without the appointment or permission which 
had been conferred upon seven poets at court, wrote a 
portion of it with so marvellous a success that its fame 
soon reached the Sultan, who commanded him to his 
presence. Mahmud was so charmed with the skill and 
genius of the young poet, that he gave him the name 
Pirdausi, the Paradisaical, by which he is known to lit- 
erature, and made him the munificent offer of a gold 
piece for every distich he should compose until the 
work was completed. Pirdausi, with a poet's inability 
to make a shrewd bargain, accepted the terms, but de- 
clined to receive any payment until the work was done ; 
when, with a poet's generosity, he proposed to give the 
sum he had so nobly earned, to the protection, by dykes, 
of his native city, which he had seen again and again 
despoiled by the annual floods. He added one to those 
whose misfortunes come by putting their trust in princes. 
After a labour of thirty years he presented to the Sultan 
his immortal work of sixty thousand distichs ; but time 
and familiarity, and particularly the envy of a court 
favorite, had changed the mind of his sovereign. He 
sent the brave poet the number of pieces, to be sure, but 
in silver, — a transmutation which Pirdausi resented 
with anger, threw away with disdain, and then fled the 
city to live and die in disappointment and exile, In 



THE SHAH NAMEH. 16 

later years the Sultan, anxious to make reparation, and 
convinced that he had been unworthily influenced by 
court enemies of Firdausi, sent him the full tale of gold ; 
but it was too late, for Firdausi was already dead. The 
poet's benevolent purpose, however, was fulfilled, and 
Firdausi's descendants saw the accomplishment of his 
wish, in the improvement of his native city ; to which 
the generous poet, believing in the word of a king, had 
dedicated his gold. 

To Firdausi's grave to-day there is a path well worn 
by the pilgrims who honor his name, — 

"Who loved the ancient kings, and learned to see 
Their buried shapes in vision one by one, 
And wove their deeds in lovely minstrelsy." 

An English poet of our own time, Mr. Edmund W. 
Gosse, in charming verse has told the story of Firdausi's 
after fate, in the poem, " Firdausi in Exile," too long to 
be quoted here entire, and too harmonious in its unity 
to be cited in part ; but I venture a single one from the 
closing stanzas : — 



'& 



His work was done; the palaces of kings 

Fade in long rains, and in loud earthquakes fall; 
The poem that a godlike poet sings 

Shines o'er his memory like a brazen wall; 
No suns may blast it, and no tempest wreck, 

Its periods ring above the trumpet's call, 
Wars and the tumult of the sword may shake 

And may eclipse it, — it survives them all." 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 



The story of Solirab and Rustum, as it has come to 
us through translation, is briefly this : Rustum, the Per- 
sian Hercules, during one of his adventures, becomes 
enamoured of a beautiful girl, the daughter of a petty 
king. The pair are wedded with all pomp and cere- 
mony, but the restless Rustum, long before the birth of 
their first child, seeks new adventures. Thus he lives 
unaware that there is growing up, in the city of Samin- 
gan, a son inheriting all the valour of his father, and giv- 
ing promise of equal renown in war. His fond mother, 
Tahmineh, when he demands his lineage, with frank 
pride assures him that he is the son of Rustum, who was 
the son of Zal, who was the son of Saum, who was the 
son of Neriman. She proves the truth of the story by 
showing him the jewels that his father sent at his birth, 
and explains to him that the onyx worn as an amulet 
on his arm is to be the seal of identification. Never- 
theless, with a mother's solicitude, she begs him not to 
confess publicly this noble relationship, since Afrasiab, 
the leader in the land of Turan, is the sworn foe of 
Rustum his father, and the disclosure of his parentage 
would doubtless cost him his life. But the boy, like 
another Telemachus^ sets himself to one task, the find- 



THE S.TORY OF SOHRAB AND EUSTUM. 17 

ing of his valiant father, and proclaims without hesita- 
tion both his birth and his purpose. He assures his 
mother that he will conquer the whole kingdom of Iran 
(Persia) for Rustum ; overthrow Kai Kaous, the reigning 
king ; give his father the crown, and with him return to 
overthrow Afrasiab and reign himself over the land of 
Turan. Afrasiab willingly makes an alliance with so 
powerful an adherent, never dreaming his ultimate pur- 
pose. He also has a plan all his own. He instructs 
his warriors, as they lead the Tartar legions against the 
Persians, to conceal from Sohrab the fact that his father 
is the great hero of the enemy. He doubts not that 
Sohrab, in his young and fresh strength, will overcome 
the old warrior, spent with many battles, and in this 
event he, in turn, by some stratagem not yet determined 
upon, will destroy Sohrab, and thus join the kingdom 
of Persia to his own. Afrasiab unfolds his purpose by 
letter to Sohrab, and the united Tartar leaders march 
toward Persia. On the way Sohrab increases his renown 
by various conquests, until, by the time he reaches the 
land of Persia, the Persian leaders, Pustum among 
them, are full of interest as to the character of this new 
foe. There are two traditions which tell us how Eus- 
tum's heart was set at rest : the one, that he had been 
made to believe by the fond mother, anxious to retain 
her child at home, that their offspring was a girl ; the 
other, that he was yet too young to be engaged in war. 
So it happened, that when the legions of Iran and of 
Turan were set against each other, Sohrab and Eustum, 
like David and Goliath, were made the representative 



18 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

champions of their respective armies. The sense of 
kinship was strong in each, but fate was stronger than 
both, and after the single contest again and again re- 
newed to prove the equal claims of heroic blood, it is 
only when Eustum's strength is supplemented by the 
supernatural power he has invoked, that he lays Sohrab 
low. Dying, Sohrab cries, " I went out to seek my 
father, for my mother had told me by what tokens I 
should know him, and I perish for longing after him. 
And now have my pains been fruitless, for it hath not 
been given unto me to look upon his face. Yet I say 
unto thee, if thou shouldst become a fish that swimmeth 
in the depths of the ocean, if thou shouldst change into 
a star that is concealed in the farthest heaven, my father 
would draw thee forth from thy hiding-place, and avenge 
my death upon thee, when he shall learn that the earth 
is become my bed. For my father is Eustum the Pehliva, 
and it shall be told unto him how that Sohrab his son 
perished in the quest after his face." Eustum demands, 
as a token, to be shown the jewel of onyx bound upon 
Sohrab's arm. Persuaded that he has been the unhappy 
murderer of his own child, his heart is made sick unto 
death, and he utters a lament not unlike that of David 
over his son Absalom. There follows in the story the 
pomp and circumstance of an Oriental burial. The 
mother lives a bitter year and dies of grief ; but of 
Eustum it is said, that " it was long before he again held 
high his head." 



AKNOLD'S SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 



The possible discovery of an open Polar Sea has had 
a compelling charm for a certain type of heroic spirits. 
The intellectual frozen regions had to Mr. Arnold a 
supreme attraction. As Tennyson sets his sail ever 
toward tropical seas, as Browning makes the soul's voy- 
age round the world, so Arnold, " bating not one jot of 
heart or hope," steers ever toward the north. There is, 
therefore, the more delight in turning from poems often 
boldly questioning the highest truths, and essays that 
challenge the foundations of oldest creeds, each too 
highly illuminated for the dim sight of his own genera- 
tion, to the romantic poem of Sohrab and Rustum, with 
its utter freedom from chilling doubt, with its full- 
charged spirit of loyal family affection. 

This poem is also one of few examples of his own 
doctrine of objectivity in poetry. While the narrative 
is taken from the great Persian epic, the strong treat- 
ment, the graphic pictures, the living action, the majes- 
tic movement, the sonorous rhythm, the exquisite choice 
of words, are Mr. Arnold's, and give us all that is best 
of his most subjective form in the midst of his most 
objective poem. Though sense of proportion, tranquillity, 
sincerity, and suggestion of reserve of power, character- 



20 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

ize all the literary work of a poet who seemed to have 
adopted the Greek motto of moderation, " Do nothing 
too much/' there resides in this poem a tenderness and 
warmth of nature whose art makes us forget its art. 

Nevertheless, the ground tone is of the same consistent 
sadness that this apostle of a high ideal never failed to 
maintain, lightened and animated by a continual illus- 
tration of Mr. Euskin's definition of poetry, "noble 
grounds for noble emotion." It contains that strong 
lyrical cry, the sweetness and gravity too great for 
melancholy ; but it is free of " that something that in- 
fects the world," too frequent in many of Arnold's best 
poems. 

" Sohrab and Kustum " is the fruit of long classical 
study, enriched by the most delicate appreciation of 
nature, — the certain result of Arnold's fidelity to Words- 
worth. The outline, as Mr. Arnold relates it, is found 
substantially in Sir John Malcolm's " History of Persia," 
and Mr. James Atkinson's translation of the " Shah 
Nameh." The reader who invites himself to the more 
thorough study of the original, will observe occasional 
inconsistencies, or will regret the omission of beautiful 
passages, which are the obvious result of the use of the 
English translations; but in a history so combined with 
myth, fidelity to a tradition may be a matter of taste 
rather than of truth. The poem holds its highest merit 
and most endearing charm in that it centres not in the 
achievement of a transient conquest of one nation over 
another, but in the restoration of an enduring tie be- 
tween a long-lost father and his son, — a simple story of 



ARNOLD'S SOHRAB AND RUSTVM. 21 

family life, that, like the Odyssey in relation to the 
Iliad, leaves an impression of domesticity rather than of 
nationality, of the ''dim trouble of humanity," illus- 
trated by one human relationship. 

The poem is valuable to the student of literature, — 

1. As a good fragmentary study of epic form, since it 
contains all the elements of epical power, and admirably 
complies with epic conditions : viz., a. it deals with a 
great past ; b. it represents a single action, and concen- 
trates it in a brief period ; c. it possesses a noble hero ; 
d. it contains the dramatic element of the dialogue ; e. its 
greatness depends upon the action of the whole, rather 
than on any particular portion. 

In fact, although an episode in an epic, like the " play 
within the play " in Hamlet, it is a little epic in a great 
one. 

2. As an artistic study of local environment and colour 
among the steppes and nomad plains of Central Asia. 
A useful comparison can be made between the two 
encampments, their leaders, and especially the pictures 
involved in the long struggle between the champions 
of the field. 

3. As a fine rhetorical study of figures, for their close- 
ness to Homer, and so, in turn, to nature. The few in- 
stances given below could be easily multiplied : — 

'* As when some grey l^^ovember morn the files, 

In marching order spread, of long-necked cranes 

Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes 

Of Elburz." 

— Sohrab and Rustum, lines 111-113. 



22 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

*' Cranes, geese, or long-necked swans, here, there, proud of their 

pinions fly, 
And in their falls lay out such throats, that with their spiritful 

cry 
The meadow shrieks again." 

— Iliad, Chapman's trans., bk. ii., lines 395-397. 

" Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight. 
Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 
Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf." 

— Sohrab and Rustum, lines 314-316. 

" And as a poplar shot aloft, set by a river-side, 
In moist edge of a mighty fen, his head in curls implied, 
And all his body plain and smooth." 

— Iliad, Chapman's trans., bk. ii., lines 520-523. 

"Sole, like some single tower, which a chief 
Hath builded on the waste in former years 
Against the robbers." 

— " Sohrab and Rustum, lines 337-339. 

'^ He fell 
As falls a tower before some stubborn siege." 

— Iliad, Bryant's trans., bk. iv., lines 582-583. 

" Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand 
Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star, 
The baleful sign of fevers." 

— Sohrab and Rustum, lines 451-453. 

''Upon his head 
And shield she caused a constant flame to play. 
Like to the autumnal star that shines in heaven 
Most brightly when new-bathed in ocean tides." 

— Iliad, Bryant's trans., bk. v., lines 4-7. 



ABNOLD'S SOHBAB AND BUSTUM. 23 

4. As a study of versification in the heroic form of 
iambic pentameter, distinct for its free movement, com- 
bined with stately form and variety in the use of the 
measure. As Mr. Arnold said of Milton, "In the sure 
and flawless perfection of his rhythm and diction, he is 
as admirable as Dante." 

5. As a study of aesthetic loveliness characterized by 
simplicity on the one hand and Attic grace on the other. 
Here again he illustrates one of his favorite theories, 
by the avoidance of any ornamentation which is unnec- 
essary to the beauty of the whole. Through the study 
here suggested, we find Matthew Arnold faithful to 
another of his poetic theories, — the duty, after select- 
ing a subject, to fashion it symmetrically. 

That Matthew Arnold should have chosen a theme like 
this for one of his earliest poems was a proof of his 
native poetic insight, before the study of Scriptures, 
theology, classic and modern history, politics, ethics, 
education, poetry and fiction had acquired for him the 
perfection of taste. 

"With a theme wisely chosen, symmetrically fash- 
ioned, freely treated, excellently sustained to its tragic 
close, we are disposed to believe that " Sohrab and 
Eustum," though not the most ambitious, is the best of 
Mr. Arnold's longer poems. 



AFTER READING ARNOLD'S SOHRAB 
AND RUSTUM. 



Who reads this measure, flowing strong and deep, 
It seems to him old Homer's voice he hears; 
But soon grows up a sound that moves to tears, — 
Tears such as Homer cannot make us weep, 
Whether a grieving god bids Death and Sleep 
Bear slain Sarpedon home unto his peers ; 
Or gray-haired Priam, kneeling, full of tears. 
Seeks Hector's corse torn by the chariot's sweep. 
Lightly these sorrows move us, in compare 
With that which moves along the Oxus' tide. 
Where by his father's hand young Sohrab died, — 
Great father and great son met unaware, 
On Fate's dark field: in awe we leave them there, 
Wrapped in the mists that from the river glide. 

Edith M. Thomas, in Lyrics and Sonnets, 1889. 



SOHKAB AND RUSTUM. 

AN EPISODE. 



And the first grey of morning fiird the east, 

And the fog rose out of the Oxns stream. 

But all the Tartar camp along the stream 

Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep ; 

Sohrab alone, he slept not ; all night long 5 

He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed ; 

But when the grey dawn stole into his tent, 

He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword. 

And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent. 

And went abroad into the cold wet fog, 10 

Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent. 

Through the black Tartar tents he passed, which stood 
Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand 
Of Oxus, where the summer-floods overflow 
When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere ; 15 

Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand, 
And to a hillock came, a little back 
From the stream's brink — the spot where first a boat, 
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. 



26 MATTHEW ABNOLD. 

20 The men of former times had crown'd the top 
With a clay fort; but that was falPn, and now 
The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, 
A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread. 
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood 

25 Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent, 
And found the old man sleeping on his bed 
Of rugs and felts, and' near him lay his arms. 
And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step 
Was dull'd ; for he slept light, an old man's sleep ; 

30 And he rose quickly on one arm, and said : — 
* Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. 
Speak I is there news, or any night alarm ? ' 

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said : — 
' Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa ! it iS I. 

35 The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 

Sleep ; but I sleep not ; all night long I lie 
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. 
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek 
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, 

40 In Samarcand, before the army march'd ; 
And I will tell thee what my heart desires. 
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan first 
I came among the Tartars and bore arms, 
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, 

45 At my boy's years, the courage of a man. 

This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on 
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, 
And beat the Persians back on every field, 
I seek one man, one man, and one alone -^ 



SOHRAB AND BUSTUM. 27 

Rustum, my father ; who I hoped should greet, 50 

Should one day greet, uiDon some well-fought field 

His not unworthy, not inglorious son. 

So I long hoped, but him I never find. 

Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. 

Let the two armies rest to-day ; but I 55 

Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords 

To meet me, man to man ; if I prevail, 

Rustum will surely hear it ; if I fall — 

Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. 

Dim is the rumour of a common fight, 60 

Where host meets host, and many names are sunk : 
But of a single combat fame speaks clear.' 

He spoke ; and Peran-Wisa took the hand 
Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said : — 
. ' O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine ! 65 

Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, 
And share the battle's common chance with us 
Who love thee, but must press for ever first, 
In single fight incurring single risk. 
To find a father thou hast never seen? 70 

That were far best, my son, to stay with us 
Unmurmuring ; in our tents, while it is war, 
And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. 
But, if this one desire indeed rules all. 
To seek out Rustum — seek him not through fight ! 75 
Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, 
O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son ! 
But far hence seek him, for he is not here. 
For now it is not as when I was young, 



28 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

80 When Rustum was in front of every fray : 
But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, 
In Seistan, with Zal, his father old. 
Whether tliat his own mighty strength at last 
Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age ; 

85 Or in some quarrel with the Persian King. 

There go ! — Thou wilt not ? Yet my heart forebodes 
Danger or death awaits thee on this field. 
Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost 
To us ; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace 

90 To seek thy father, not seek single fights 
In vain ; — but who can keep the lion's cub 
From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son ? 
Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires.' 
So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left 

95 His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay ; 
And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat 
He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, 
And threw a white cloak round him, and he took 
In his right hand a ruler's stalf, no sword ; 

100 And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, 
Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul ; 
And rais'd the curtain of his tent, and calFd 
His herald to his side, and went abroad. 

The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog 

105 From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. 
And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed 
Into the open plain ; so Haman bade — 
Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled 
The host, and still was in his lusty prime. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 29 

From their black tents, long files of horse, they streamed ; 110 

As when some grey November morh the files, 

In marching order spread, of long-necked cranes 

Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes 

Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries, 

Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound 115 

For the warm Persian sea-board — so they streamed. 

The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, 

First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears ; 

Large men, large steeds ; who from Bokhara come 

And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares. 120 

Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south, 

The Tukas, and the lances of Salore, 

And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands ; 

Light men and on light steeds, who only drink 

The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. 125 

And then a swarm of wandering hors^, who came 

From far and a more doubtful service own'd ; 

The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks 

Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards 

And close-set skull caps ; and those wilder hordes 130 

Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste, 

Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray > 

Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes, 

Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere — 

These all filed out from cam^> into the plain. 135 

And on the other side the Persians form'd ; — 

First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd, 

The llyats of Khorassan ; and behind. 

The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, 



30 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

140 Marshaird battalions bright in burnished steel. 
But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, 
Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, 
And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. 
And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw 

145 That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back. 

He took his spear, and to the front he came, 

And checked his ranks, and fix'd them where they stood. 

And the old Tartar came upon the sand 

Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said : — 

150 ♦ Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear ! 
Let there be truce between the hosts to-day. 
But choose a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man.' 
As, in the country, on a morn in June, 

155 When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 
A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy — 
So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, 
A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran 
Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. 

160 But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, 
Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, 
That vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow ; 
Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass 
Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, 

165 Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves 
Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries — 
In single file they move, and stop their breath. 
For fear they should dislodge the overhanging snows — 
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. 



SOHBAB AND BUSTITM. 31 

And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 170 

To counsel ; Gudurz and Zoavrah came, 
And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host 
Second, and was the uncle of the King ; 
These came and counselFd, and then Gudurz said : — 

' Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 175 
Yet champion have we none to match this youth. 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. 
But Rustum came last night ; aloof he sits 
And sullen, and has pitched his tents apart. 
Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 180 

The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name ; 
Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. 
Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up.' 

So spake he ; and Ferood stood forth and cried : — 
' Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said ! 185 

Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man.' 

He spake ; and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode 
Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. 
But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, 
And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd, 190 
Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents. 
Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay. 
Just pitch'd ; the high pavilion in the midst 
Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. 
And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found 195 

Rustum ; his morning meal was done, but still 
The-table stood before him, charged with food — 
A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread. 
And dark green melons ; and there Rustum sate 



32 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

200 Listless, and held a falcon on his wrist, 

And play'd with it ; but Gudurz came and stood 
Before him ; and he look'd, and saw him stand, 
And with a cry sprang ui3 and dropp'd the bird. 
And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said : — 

205 * Welcome ! these eyes could see no better sight. 
What news ? but sit down first, and eat and drink.' 

But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said : — 
' Not now ! a time will come to eat and drink. 
But not to-day ; to-day has other needs. 

210 The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze ; 
For from the Tartars is a challenge brought 
To pick a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight their champion — and thou know'st his name ■ 
Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. 

215 O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's ! 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart ; 
And he is young, and Iran's chiefs are old. 
Or else too weak ; and all eyes turn to thee. 
Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose ! ' 

220 He spoke ; but Rustum answered, with a smile : — 
' Go to ! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I 
Am older ; if the young are weak, the King 
Errs strangely ; for the King, for Kai Khosroo, 
Himself is young, and honors younger men, 

225 And lets the aged moulder to their graves. 

Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young — 
The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. 
For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame ? 
For would that I myself had such a son. 



803RAB AND RUSTUM. 33 

And not that one slight helpless girl I have — 230 

A son so famed, so brave, to send to war. 

And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal, 

My father, whom the robber Afghans vex. 

And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, 

And he has none to guard his weak old age. 235 

There would I go, and hang my armour up. 

And with my great name fence that weak old man, 

And spend the goodly treasures I have got, 

And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame, 

And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 240 

And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more.' 

He spoke, and smiled ; and Gudurz made reply : — 
' What then, O Rustum, will men say to this, 
When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks 
Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 245 

Hidest thy face ? Take heed lest men should say : 
Like some old miser, Bustum hoards his fame, 
And shuns to x>eril it with younger men.'' 

And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply : — 
' O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words ? 250 

Thou knowest better words than this to say. 
What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, 
Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? 
Are not they mortal, am not I myself? 

But who for men of nought would do great deeds ? 255 

Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame ! 
But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms ; 
Let not men saj^ of Rustum, he was match'd 
In single fight with any mortal man.' 



34 MATTHEW ARNOLt). 

260 He spoke, and frown'd ; and Gudnrz turn^l, and ran 
Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy — 
Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came. 
But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and calPd 
His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, 

265 And clad himself in steel ; the arms he chose 
Were plain, and on his shield was no device. 
Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, 
And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume 
Of horse-hair waved, a scarlet horse-hair plume. 

270 So arm'd, he issued forth ; and Ruksh, his horse. 
Followed him like a faithful hound at heel — 
Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth, 
The horse whom Rustum on a foray once 
Did in Bokhara by the river find 

275 A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 
And rear'd him ; a bright bay, with lofty crest, 
Dight with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green 
Crusted with gold, and on the gromid were work'd 
All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. 

280 So followed, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd 
The camp, and to the Persian host appeared. 
And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts 
Haird ; but the Tartars knew not who he wasw 
And dear as the wet diver to the eyes 

285 Of- his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore. 
By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, 
Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, . 
Having made up his tale of precious pearls. 
Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands — 



SOHRAB ^ND BUSTITM, 35 

So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. 290 

And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, 

And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came. 

A.nd as afield the reapers cut a swath 

Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, 

And on each side are squares of standing corn, 295 

And in the midst a stubble, short and bare — 

So on each side were squares of men, with spears 

Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. 

And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast 

His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 300 

Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. 

As some rich woman, on a winterls morn. 
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge 
Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire — 
At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, 305 

When the frost flowers the whiten'd window-panes — 
And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts 
Of that poor drudge may be ; so Rustum eyed 
The unknown adventurous Youth, who from afar 
Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 310 

All the most valiant chiefs ; long he perused 
His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. 
For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd ; 
Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight. 
Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 315 

Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, 
By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound — 
So slender Sohrab seem'd, so softly rear'd. 
And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul 



36 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

320 As he beheld him coming ; and he stood, 

And beckonYl to him with his hand, and said : — 
' O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft, 
And warm, and pleasant ; but the grave is cold ! 
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. 

325 Behold me ! I am vast, and clad in iron. 

And tried : and I have stood on many a field 
Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe — 
Never was that field lost, or that foe saved. 
O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death ? 

330 Be governed ! quit the Tartar host, and come 
To Iran, and be as my son to me. 
And fight beneath my banner till I die ! 
There are no youths in Iran brave as thou.' 
So he spake, mildly ; Sohrab heard his voice, 

335 The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw 
His giant figure planted on the sand, 
Sole, like some single tower, which a chief 
Hath build ed on the waste in former years 
Against the robbers ; and he saw that head, 

340 Streak'd with its first grey hairs ; hope filled his soul, 
And he ran forward and embraced his knees. 
And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said : — 

' O, by thy father's head ! by thine own soul ! 
Art thou not Rustum ? speak ! art thou not he ? ' 

345 But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth. 
And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul : — 

' Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean ! 
False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. 
For if I now confess this thins: he asks, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. S7 

And hide it not, but say : Rustum is here ! 350 

He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, 

But he will find some pretext not to fight, 

And praise my fame, and profiler courteous gifts, 

A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. 

And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall, 365 

In Samarcand, he will arise and cry : 

" I challenged once, when the two armies camp^'d 

Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords 

To cope with me in single fight; but they 

Shrank, only Rustum dared ; then he and I 360 

Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away." 

So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud ; 

Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me.' 

And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud : — 
' Rise ! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 365 

Of Rustum ? I am here, whom thou hast call'd 
By challenge forth ; make good thy vaunt, or yield ! 
Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight ? 
Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee ! 
For well I know that did great Rustum stand 370 

Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd. 
There would be then no talk of fighting more. 
But being what I am, I tell thee this — 
Do thou record it in thine inmost soul : 
Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 375 

Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds 
Bleach them, or Oxus, with his sumjner-floods, 
Oxus in summer wash them all away,' 

He spoke ; and Sohrab answered, on his feet : — 



38 MATTBEW ARNOLD. 

380 ' Art thou so fierce ? Thou wilt not fright me so ! 
I am no girl, to be made pale by words. 
Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand 
Here on this field, there were no fighting then. 
But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. 

385 Begin ! thou art more vast, more dread than T, 
' And thou art proved, I know, and I am young — 
But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven. 
And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure 
Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. 

390 For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 
Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, 
Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. 
And whether it will heave us up to land. 
Or whether it will roll us out to sea, 

395 Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 

We know not, and no search will make us know ; 
Only the event will teach us in its hour.' 

He spoke, and Rustum answered not, but hurPd 
His spear ; down fi*om the shoulder, down it came, 

400 As on some partridge in the corn a hawk, 
That long has tower'd in the airy clouds. 
Drops like a plummet ; Sohrab saw it come, 
And sprang aside, quick as a flash ; the spear 
Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand, 

405 Which it sent flying wide ; — then Sohrab threw 

In turn, and full struck Rustum's shield ; sharp rang. 
The iron plates rang sharp, but turned the spear. 
And Rustum seized his club, which noije but he 
Could wield ; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge, 



SOHBAB AND RUSTUM. 39 

Still rough — like those which men in treeless plains 410 

To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, 

Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up 

By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time 

Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack. 

And strewn the channels with torn boughs — so huge 415 

The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck 

One stroke ; but again Sohrab sprang aside, 

Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came 

Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. 

And Rustum followed his own blow, and fell 420 

To his knees, and with his fingers clutched the sand ; 

And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword. 

And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay 

Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand ; 

But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, 425 

But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said : — 

' Thou strik'st too hard ! that club of thine will float 
Upon the summer floods, and not my bones. 
But rise, and be not wroth ! not wroth am I ; 
No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 430 

Thou says't, thou art not Rustum ; be it so ! 
Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul ? 
Boy as I am, I have seen battles too — 
Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, 
And heard their hollow roar of dying men ; 435 

But never was my heart thus touched before. 
Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart ? 
O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven ! 
Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, 



40 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

440 And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, 

And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, 
And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds. 
There are enough foes in the Persian host, 
Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang ; 

445 Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 

May'st fight ; fight them, when they confront thy spear : 
But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me ! ' . 

He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen. 
And stood erect, trembling with rage ; his club 

450 He left to lie, but had regained his spear. 

Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand 
Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star. 
The baleful sign of fevers ; dust had soiPd 
His stately crest, and dimmed his glittering arms. 

455 His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice 
Was choked with rage ; at last these words broke way : - 

* Girl ! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands ! 
Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words ! 
Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more ! 

460 Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 

With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance ; 
But on the Oxus sands, and in the dance 
Of battle, and with me, who make no j^lay 
Of war ; I fight it out, and hand to hand. 

465 Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine ! 
Remember all thy valour ; try thy feints 
And cunning ! all the pity I had is gone ; 
Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts 
With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles.' 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 41 

He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts, 470 

And he too drew his sword ; at once they rusli'd 
Together, as two eagles on one prey 
Come rushing down together from the clouds, 
One from the east, one from the west ; their shields 
Dash'd with a clang together, and a din 475 

Rose, such as that the sinewy wood-cutters 
Make often in the forest's heart at morn, 
Of hewing axes, crashing trees — such blows 
Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd. 
And you would say that sun and stars took part 480 

In that unnatural conflict ; for a cloud 
Grew suddenly in Heaven, and dark'd the sun 
Over the fighters' heads ; and a wind rose 
Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain. 
And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair. 485 

In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone ; 
For both the on-looking hosts on either hand 
Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, 
And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream. 
But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes 490 
And labouring breath ; first Rustum struck the shield 
Which Sohrab held stiff out ; the steel-spiked spear 
Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin. 
And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan. 
Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm, 495 
Nor clove its steel quite through ; but all the crest 
He shore away, and that j^roud horse-hair plume. 
Never till now defiled, sank to the dust ; 
And Rustum bow'd his head ; but then the gloom 



42 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

500 Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air. 

And lightnings rent the cloud ; and Ruksh, the horse, 
Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry ; — 
No horse's cry was that, most like the roar 
Of some paiii'd desert-lion, who all day 

505 Has traird the hunter's javelin in his side. 
And comes at night to die upon the sand — 
The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, 
And Oxus curdled as it cross'd his stream. 
But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on, 

510 And struck again ; and again Rustum bowVl 

His head ; but this time all the blade, like glass, 
Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm. 
And in the hand the hilt remained alone. 
Then Rustum raised his head ; his dreadful eyes 

515 Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 
And shouted : Bustum ! — Sohrab heard that shout, 
And shrank amazed : back he recoil'd one step. 
And scanned with blinking eyes the advancing form ; 
And then he stood bewildered, and he dropp'd 

520 His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. 
He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground; 
And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell. 
And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all 
The cloud ; and the two armies saw the pair ; — 

525 Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet, 
And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. 

Then, with a bitter smile, Rustum began : — 
* Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill 
A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 43 

And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent. 530 

Or else that the great Rustiim would come down 

Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move 

His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. 

And then that all the Tartar host would praise 

Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 535 

To glad thy father in his weak old age. 

Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man ! 

Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be 

Than to thy friends, and to thy father old.' 

And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied : -^ 540 

' Unknown thou art ; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. 
Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man ! 
No ! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. 
For were I match'd with ten such men as thee, 
And I were that which till to-day I was, 545 

They should be lying here, I standing there. 
But that beloved name unnerved my arm — 
That name, and something, I confess, in thee. 
Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield 
Fall ; and thy spear transfix'd an unarmed foe. 550 

And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate. 
But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear ; 
The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death ! 
My father, whom I seek through all the world, 
He shall avenge my death, and punish thee ! ' 555 

As when some hunter in the spring hath found 
A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, 
Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake. 
And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, 



44 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

560 And followed her to find her where she fell 
Far off; — anon her mate comes winging back 
From hunting, and a great way olf descries 
His huddling young left sole ; at that, he checks 
His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps 

565 Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 
Chiding his mate back to her nest ; but she 
Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, 
In some far stony gorge out of his ken, 
A heap of fluttering feathers — never more 

570 Shall the lake glass her, flying over it ; 
Never the black and dripping precipices 
Echo her stormy scream as she sails by — 
As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, 
So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood 

575 Over his dying son, and knew him not. 

And with a cold, incredulous voice, he said : — 
'What prate is this of fathers and revenge? 
The mighty Rustum never had a son.' 

And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied : — 

580 ' Ah yes, he had ! and that lost son am I. 
Surely the news will one day reach his ear. 
Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long. 
Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here ; 
And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap 

585 To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. 
Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son ! 
What will that grief, what will that vengeance be ? 
Oh, could 1 live till I that grief have seen ! 
Yet him I pity not so much, but her, 



II 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 45 

My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 590 

With that old king, her father, who grows gray 

With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. 

Her most I pity, who no more will see 

Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp. 

With spoils and honour, when the war is done. 595 

But a dark rumour will be bruited up. 

From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear ; 

And then will that defenceless woman learn 

That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more ; 

But that in battle with a nameless foe, 600 

By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain.' 

He spoke ; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, 
Thinking of her he left, and his own death. 
He spoke ; but Rustum listened, plunged in thought. 
Nor did he yet believe it was his son 605 

Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew ; 
For he had had sure tidings that the babe, 
WTiich was in Ader-baijan born to him, 
Had been a puny girl, no boy at all — 
So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610 

Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. 
And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took. 
By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son ; 
Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. 
So deem'd he : yet he listened, plunged in thought ; 615 
And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide 
Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore 
At the full moon ; tears gather'd in his eyes ; 
For he remember'd his own early youth 



46 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

620 And all its bounding rapture ; as, at dawn, 

The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries 
A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, 
Through many rolling clouds — so Rustum saw 
His youth ; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom ; 

625 And that old king, her father, who loved well 
His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child 
With joy ; and all the pleasant life they led, 
They three, in that long-distant summer-time — 
The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt 

630 And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 
In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth, 
Of age and looks to be his own dear son. 
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand. 
Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe 

635 Of an unskilful gardener has been cut. 

Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed. 
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, 
On the mown, dying grass — so Sohrab lay. 
Lovely in death, upon the common sand. 

640 And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said : — 
* O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son 
Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved ! 
Yet thou errest, Sohrab, or else men 
Have told thee false — thou art not Rustum's son. 

645 For Rustum had no son ; one child he had — 
But one — a girl ; who with her mother now 
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us — 
Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.' 
But Sohrab answered him in wrath ; for now 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 47 

The anguish of the deep-fixVl spear grew fierce, 650 

And he desired to draw forth the steel. 
And let the blood flow free, and so to die — 
But first he would convince his stubborn foe ; 
And, rising sternly on one arm, he said : — 

' Man, who art thou who dost deny my words ? 655 

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, 
And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. 
I tell thee, pricked upon this arm I bear 
That seal which Rustum to my mother gave. 
That she might prick it on the babe she bore.' 660 

He spoke ; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks. 
And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand 
Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand. 
That the hard iron corslet clank'd aloud ; 
And to his heart he jDress'd the other hand, 665 

And in a hollow voice he spake, and said : — 

' Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie ! 
If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son.' 

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed 
His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, 670 

And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points 
Prick'd; as a cunning workman, in Pekin, 
Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, VAZ 
An emperor's gift — at early morn he paints, 
And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 675 
Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands — 
So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd 
On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. 
It was that griffin, which of old rear'd Zal, 



48 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

680 Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, 
A helpless babe, among the mountain rocks ; 
Him that kind creature found, and rear'd and loved — 
Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. 
And Sohrab bared that image on his arm, 

685 And himself scanned it long with mournful eyes. 
And then he touch'd it with his hand and said : — 

' How say'st thou ? Is that sign the proper sign 
Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's? ' 
He spoke ; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood 

690 Speechless ; and then he utter'd one sharp cry : 
boy — thy father! — and his voice choked there. 
And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes, 
And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. 
But Sohrab crawFd to where he lay, and cast 

695 His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips. 

And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, 
Trying to call him back to life ; and life 
Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, 
And they stood wide with horror ; and he seized 

700 In both his hands the dust which lay around, 

And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair, — 
His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms ; 
And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast. 
And his sobs choked him ; and he clutched his sword, 

705 To draw it, and for ever let life out. 

But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, 
And with a soothing voice he spake, and said : — 

' Father, forbear ! for I but meet to-day 
The doom which at my birth was written down 



SOHRAB AND RUSTU3I. 49 

In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand. 710 

Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, 

When first I saw thee ; and thy heart spoke too, 

I know it ! but fate trod these promptings down 

Under its iron heel ; fate, fate engaged 

The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear. 715 

But let us speak no more of this ! I find 

My father ; let me feel that I have found ! 

Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take 

My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks. 

And wash them with thy tears, and say : My son ! 720 

Quick ! quick ! for numbered are my sands of life, 

And swift ; for like the lightning to this field 

I came, and like the wind I go away — 

Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind ; 

But it was writ in Heaven that this should be.' 725 

So said he, and his voice released the heart 
Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast 
His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, 
And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts. 
When they saw Rustum's grief ; and Ruksh, the horse, 730 
With his head bowing to the ground and mane 
Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe 
First to the one then to the other moved 
His head, as if inquiring what their grief 
Might mean ; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, 735 
The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked the sand. 
But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said : — 

'Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet 
Should then have rotted on their nimble joints, 



50 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

740 When first they bore thy master to this field ! ' 

But Sohrab looked upon the horse, and said : — 
♦ Is this, then, Ruksh ? How often, in past days, 
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed. 
My terrible father's terrible horse ! and said, 

745 That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 
Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane ! 
O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I ; 
For thou hast gone where I shall never go, 
And snuff d the breezes of my father's home. 

750 And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 

And seen the river of Helmund, and the Lake 
Of Zirrah ; and the aged Zal himself 
Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, 
Corn in a golden platter soaked with wine, 

755 And said : ' Ruksh ! bear Rustum tvell,' — but I 
Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face. 
Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, 
Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream ; 
But lodged among my father's foes, and seen 

760 Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, 

Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, 
And the black Toorkmun tents ; and only drunk 
The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend, 
Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, 
765 The northern Sir ; and this great Oxus stream, 
The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die.' 

Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd: — 
' Oh that its waves were flowing over me ! 
Oh that I saw its grains of yellow silt 



SOHRAB AND BUSTUM. 51 

Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head ! ' 770 

But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied : — 

« Desire not that, my father ! thou must live. 

For some are born to do great deeds, and live, 

As some are born to be obscured, and die. 

Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 775 

And reap a second glory in thine age ; 

Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. 

But come ! thou seest this great host of men 

Which follow me ; I pray thee, slay not these ! 

Let me intreat for them ; what have they done ? 780 

They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star. 

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. 

But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, 

But carry me with thee to Seistan, 

And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, 785 

Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends. 

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth. 

And heap a stately mound above my bones. 

And i^lant a far-seen pillar over all. 

That so the passing horseman on the waste 790 

May see my tomb a great way off, and cry : 

Sohrab, the mighty Rustum^s son, lies there. 

Whom his great father did in ignorance kill! 

And I be not forgotten in my grave.' 

And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied : — 795 

* Fear not ! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, 

So shall it be ; for I will burn my tents, 

And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, 

And carry thee away to Seistan, 



52 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

800 And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 
With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. 
And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, 
And heap a stately mound above thy bones, 
And plant a far-seen pillar over all, 

805 And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 
And I will spare thy host ; yea, let them go ! 
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace ! 
What should I do with slaying any more? 
For would that all whom I have ever slain 

810 Might be once more alive ; my bitterest foes. 

And they who were caird champions in their time, 
And through whose death I won that fame I have - 
And I were nothing but a common man, 
A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, 

815 So thou mightest live too, my son, my son ! 
Or rather would that I, even I myself. 
Might now be lying on this bloody sand, 
Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, 
Not thou of mine ! and I might die, not thou ; 

820 And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan ; 

And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine ; 
And say : son, I weep thee not too sore, 
For ivillingly, I know, thou ineVst thy end! 
But now in blood and battles was my youth, 

825 And full of blood and battles is my age. 
And I shall never end this life of blood.' 

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied : — 
' A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man ! 
But thou shalt yet have peace ; only not now. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 53 

Not yet ! but thou shalt have it on that day 830 

When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, 
Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo 
Returning iiome over the salt blue sea, 
From laying thy dear master in his grave.' 

And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said : — 835 
' Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea ! 
Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure.' 

He spoke ; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took 
The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased 
His wound's imperious anguish ; but the blood 840 

Came welling from the open gash, and life 
Flow'd with the stream ; — all down his cold white side 
The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, 
Like the soil'd tissue of white violets. 
Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, 845 

By children whom their nurses call with haste 
Indoors from the sun's eye ; his head droop'd low, 
His limbs grew slack ; motionless, white, he lay — 
White, with eyes closed ; only when heavy gasps, 
Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, 850 
Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them. 
And fixed them feebly on his father's face ; 
Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs 
Unwillingly, the spirit fled away. 

Regretting the warm mansion which it left, 855 

And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. 

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead ; 
And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak 
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. 



54 MATTHEW ABNOLB. 

860 As those black granite iDillars, once high-rear'd 
By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear 
His house, now mid their broken flights of steps 
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side — 
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. 

865 And night came down over the solemn waste, 
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair. 
And darkened all ; and a cold fog, with night, 
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose. 
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires 

870 Began to twinkle through the fog ; for now 

Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal ; 
The Persians took it on the open sands 
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge ; 
And Rustum and his son were left alone. 

875 But the majestic river floated on. 

Out of the mist and hum of that low land. 
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, 
Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste. 
Under the solitary moon ; — he flowed 

880 Right for the polar star, past Orgunjfe, 

Brimming, and bright, and large ; then sands begin 
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, 
And split his currents ; that for many a league 
The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along 

885 Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — 
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had 
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, 
A f oil'd circuitous wanderer — till at last 



SOHBAB AND RUSTUM. 55 

The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide 
His luminous home of waters opens, bright 890 

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars 
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. 



INTRODUCTION TO NOTES. 



No one can read the poem of "Sohrab and Rustum" without 
being impressed with Mr. Arnold's knowledge of Hellenic and 
Hebraic literature. For this reason, the Notes will be found sup- 
plied with classical and Biblical illustrations. The Hebraic litera- 
ture lends itself with special ease to the poem of "Sohrab and 
Rustum," for the fact, that, as the Israelites counted themselves 
the champions of Jehovah against the surrounding heathen, so the 
Iranians considered themselves the soldiers of Ormuzd against the 
Turanians, whom they believed to be under the evil power of 
Ahriman. 

Such personages as are historical, and such geographical names 
as are yet of living interest, have been interpreted, but the aim has 
been to suggest lines of thought and methods of comparison, rather 
than to perfect them. 

The story of Sohrab and Rustum is told in Sir John Malcolm's 
"History of Persia," as follows: "The young Sohrab was the 
fruit of one of Rustum' s early amours. He had left his mother, 
and sought fame under the banners of Afrasiab, whose armies he 
commanded, and soon obtained a renown beyond that of all con- 
temporary heroes but his father. He had carried death and dismay 
into the ranks of the Persians, and had terrified the boldest warriors 
of that country, before Rustum encountered him, which at last 
that hero resolved to do under a feigned name. They met three 
times. The first time they parted by mutual consent, though 
Sohrab had the advantage; the second, the youth obtained a vic- 
tory, but granted life to his unknown father; the third was fatal 
to Sohrab, who, when writhing in the pangs of death, warned his 
conqueror to shun the vengeance that is inspired by parental woes. 



58 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

and bade him dread the rage of the mighty Rustum, who must 
soon learn that he had slain his son Sohrab. These words, we are 
told, were as death to the aged hero; and, when he recovered from 
a trance, he called in despair for proofs of what Sohrab had said. 
The afflicted and dying youth tore open his mail, aiid showed his 
father a seal which his mother had placed on his arm when she 
discovered to him the secret of his birth, and bade him seek his 
father. The sight of his own signet rendered Rustum quite frantic ; 
he cursed himself, attempting to put an end to his existence, and 
was only prevented by the efforts of his expiring son. After 
Sohrab' s death, he burned his tents and all his goods, and carried 
the corpse to Seistan, where it was interred : the army of Turan 
was, agreeably to the last request of Sohrab, permitted to cross the 
Oxus unmolested. To reconcile us to the improbability of this tale, 
we are informed that Rustum could have no idea his son was in 
existence. The mother of Sohrab had written to him her child 
was a daughter, fearing to lose her darling infant if she revealed 
the truth; and Rustum, as before stated, fought under a feigned 
name, an usage not uncommon in the chivalrous combats of those 
days." 



NOTES. 



Page 25, Line 1. And. The character of the poem as an episode 
is emphasized by this Scriptural use of tlie word, which opens a narra- 
tive wlaen tlie connection with what goes before is not obvious. Cf. 
Ex. xxiv. 1 ; Num. i. 1. " And the Lord spake unto Moses," etc. 

P. 25, 1. 2. The Oxus stream. Now the Amoo Darya. Arnold 
accepts the tradition that it has always flowed into the Aral. Milton's 
" Paradise Lost," Book XL, 1. 389 : — 

" Aud Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne." 
The introduction of the tranquil picture of the Oxus, both at the begin- 
ning and close of the poem {vide lines 875-892), flowing steadily on, 
unmoved by the tragedy which has been enacted on her shore, forms 
one of the most artistic features in the setting of the poem. 

P. 25, 1. 5-11. Cf. Shakespeare's "King Henry V.," Act IV., 
Scene I. 

P. 25, 1. 11. Peran-Wisa. A Turanian chief, ambitious, for politi- 
cal reasons, for the hand of the daughter of Afrasiab. The text of 
the " Shall Nameh " tells us that Sohrab from a height overlooked the 
tents of the enemy, while Hujir, his captive attendant, named the 
heroes who occupied them, much after the fashion of Helen with 
Priam at the gates of Troy. 

P. 25, 1. 13. Clustering like beehives, etc. This opening simile 
is a fair example of the general Homeric character of Mr. Arnold's 
figures. Like Homer's they are drawn from simple, natural objects. 
See pp. 21, 22. 

P. 25, 1. 15. Pamere. An elevated steppe in the region of the 
southern affluents of the Oxus. 

P. 25, 1. 16. Through the black tents he pass'd. Cf. line 12. 
This repetition belongs alike to the Homeric poetry, and to the correct 
form of art when it depicts nature. Cf . Ruskin's " Elements of Draw- 
ing," Letter III., On Color and Composition. Many other instances 
may be found in the poem. 



60 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

Page 26, Line 29. For he slept light, etc. Shakespeare's 
" Romeo and Juliet," Act II., Scene III. : — 

" Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye." 
P. 26, 1. 38. King Afrasiab. A lineal descendant of Tur, one of 
the three sons of Feridun. The Turanians perpetually invaded the 
more beautiful country of Iran, or Persia; and Afrasiab, reputed to 
have been as strong as a lion, with a shadow that extended miles, had 
been a particularly successful conqueror and usurper. At the period 
of the episode his power was on the wane, and the house of Zal was 
pledged to expel the tyrant from Persia. 

P. 26, 1. 40, In Samarcand. A city of Russian Turkestan, later 
celebrated as the capital of Timur's empire, and still a centre of 
Mohammedan learning. 

P. 26, 1. 42. Ader-baijan. The most northerly province of Persia, 
nearest Turania. 

P. 26, 1. 45. At my boy's years, etc. Cf. the interview of David 
and Saul. 1 Sam. xvii. 31-37. 

Pp. 26, 27,1. 49, 50. I seek one man, etc. Cf. the interview of Mene- 
lausand Telemachus, when Telemachus seeks Lacedsemon in quest of 
his father. Homer's " Odyssey," Book IV., Chapman's Translation: — 
" ' And what, my young Ulysseau heroe, 
Provoked thee on the broad back of the sea, 
To visit Lacedaemon the divine? 
Speak truth. Some public (cause) or only thine ? * 
* I come,' said he, ' to liear, if any fame 
Breathed of my father to thy notice came.' " 

P. 27, 1. 55-57. But I, etc. Cf . the challenge of Paris to Menelaus 
through Hector. " Iliad," Book III. Cf. also 1 Sam. xvii. 4-10. 

P. 27, 1. 59. The dead . . . claim no kin. This is the first 
of a succession of aphorisms, well worth attention, throughout the 
poem. 

P. 27, 1. 63-64. And Peran-Wisa took the hand, etc. This is 
an Occidental rather than an Oriental expression of sympathy, taken 
from the Greek. 

P. 28, 1. 82. In Seistan with Zal, his father, etc. Seistan is a 
province and lake of Afghanistan, named from the Sarghis, a kind of 
wood which abounds there. 

Zal, "the aged," the son of Saum, and reputed to be descended 
from Benjamin the son of Jacob, was the father of Rustum. He had 



NOTES. 61 

the misfortune to be born with white hair, a colour odious to the 
Persians : and on this account he was exposed on the mountains to be 
befriended by the Simurgh, the bird of marvel, until his penitent 
father besought that he might be returned to his kingdom, which in 
his youth he administered with the wisdom of his premature silver 
locks. 

Page 28, Lines 86-91. This sympathetic passage of solicitude on 
the part of Peran-Wisa for the son of Rustum is entirely Arnold's. 

P. 28, 1. 94-104. So said he . . . went abroad. This micro- 
scopic description of Peran-Wisa at his toilet somewhat justifies the 
criticism of " Blackwood's Magazine," Vol. LXXV., 1854. In fact, it 
is the only passage in this fine poem which drops entirely to prose. 

P. 28, 1. 101. Kara-Kvil. A town of Bokhara, noted for its 
fleeces. 

P. 28, 1. 107. Hainan. In the " Shah Nameh " he assists in the 
concealment from Sohrab of the presence of Rustum, his father, in 
the enemy's camp. 

P. 29, 1. 110-135. It is interesting to note the delight of poets in 
the introduction of long lists of musical, geographical names. Note 
the catalogue of ships in the "Iliad," Book II.; the list of learned 
medical men in Chaucer's "Prologue," lines 429-434; Adam's view of 
the world from the hill of Paradise, Milton's " Paradise Lost," Book 
XL, lines 379-411; and the names of Scottish haunts in Clough's 
" Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich." 

P. 29, 1. 113. Casbin. A fortified town of Persia. 

P. 29, 1. 114. Elburz. A range of mountains on the shore of the 
Caspian Sea. 

P. 29, 1. 115. Frore. Frozen. 

" Parching air 
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire." — Milton. 

P. 29, 1. 119. Bokhara. A city of Turkestan, traditionally founded 
by Alexander the Great. 

P. 29, 1. 120. Khiva. A desert province of Turkestan. 

P. 29, 1. 122, 123. Tukas, etc. Soldiers of various provinces of 
Turkestan, indicated by the rivers on whose shores they dwelt. 

P. 29, 1. 128. Ferghana, or Khokan. A province of Turkestan. 

P. 29, 1. 129. Jaxartes. A large river of Turkestan, rising, like 
the Oxus, in Pamere and flowing parallel with it to the Aral Sea, 



62 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

Page 29, Line 131. Kipchak. A town of independent Tartaiy 
near the Oxus. 

P. 29, 1. 132. Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks. Kalmucks, 
a nomadic people of upper Asia. Kuzzaks, the ancient Cossacks, 
famous, like the modern Cossack, for military skill and horsemanship. 

P. 29,, 1. 133. Kirghizzes. A violent and traitorous Mongolian 
tribe of Central Asia. 

P. 29, 1. 138. Khorassan — " Province of the sun." Including 
now a part of Afghanistan. 

P. 30, 1. 140. Maishall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel. 
The Persian troops, in finer equipment, and under better discipline, 
are disposed of in five lines, with the lack of interest that usually 
pertains to greatly systematized bodies. 

P. 30, 1. 143. And with his staff. This primitive form of leader- 
ship is another Hebraic touch suggestive of Moses and his rod. 

P. 30, 1. 150-154. Cf. "And he [Goliath of Gath] stood and cried 
unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, ' Why are ye come out 
to set your battle in array ? Am not I a Philistine, and ye servants 
to Saul ? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.' " — 
1 Sam. xvii. 8. 

P. 30, 1. 160-169. This simile is based, as every one knows, on con- 
ditions that exist to-day, not only in the Caucasus, but also in the Alps, 
where travellers in certain places of peril are not allowed to speak for 
fear of dislodging an avalanche. 

P. 31, 1. 177. He has the wild stag's foot. The classical student 
will remember that a favorite epithet for Achilles is "the swift of 
foot." 

P. 31, 1. 178-183. Aloof he sits. Cf. Achilles sitting apart nursing 
his anger against Agamemnon. " Iliad," Book I. 

P. 31, 1. 188. Squadrons. A rare use of this word. Milton, also, 



" Those half-rounding guards, 
Just met, and closing, two in squadron joined." 

P. 31, 1. 192. Of scarlet cloth, etc. Cf . in effect of colour Peran- 
Wisa's "dome of laths " (line 23). 

Pp. 31, 32, 1. 199-204. And there Rustum sat . . . and said. 

Cf. with Achilles, who " drew solace from the music of a harp," to 
which he sang the deeds of heroes. " Iliad," Book IX. 

Note.— Achilles also oflfers hospitalities which are accepted, not declined 
as in this case (Hnes 207, 208). 



NOTES. 63 

Page 32, Line 205. The welcome and proffers of hospitality are 
strikingly Homeric. 

P. 32, 1. 217. Iran's chiefs. It must be borne in mind that Iran 
and Turan were the two brothers from whom the Persians and Turks 
sprang. 

P. 32, 1. 221. Go to. Hebraic expression. Cf. Gen. xi. 3, 4; 
Eccl. ii. 1 ; Isa. v. 5; James iv. 13; v. 1. 

P. 32, 1. 223. Kai Khosroo. A son of Saiawush and Ferangish, 
who lived to avenge the death of his father, Afrasiab's murdered 
victim, and, " with seeking what the foolish seek," became tempo- 
rarily Shah of Persia. 

" What have we to do 
With Kaikobad the Great or Kaikhosru ? 
Let Zal and Rustum thunder as they will." 

— RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM, Stanza 10. 

p. 32, 1. 226. Rustum he loves no more, etc. Before the Shah 
had performed the victorious march into Persia, he had promised Zal 
that he would leave the kingdom to Rustum. 

P. 33, 1. 230. And not that one. Vide line 78, page 144. 
Mr. Arnold here follows an early English translation which holds, 
that, in order that her son might not be taken from her to engage in 
war, Tahmineh had sent word to Rustum that the child was a daughter. 
P. 33, 1. 232. The snow-hair'd Zal. See line 82, page 28. 
P. 33, 1. 240. And leave to death the hosts of thankless 
kings. "Iliad," Bryant's Translation, Book IX. 389-398: — 
" Nor deem I that the son 
Of Atreus or the other Greeks can move 
My settled purpose, since no thanks are paid 
To him who with the enemy maintains 
A constant battle : equal is the meed 
Of him who stands aloof and him who fights 
Manfully ; both the coward and the brave 
Are held in equal honor, and they die 
An equal death — the idler and the man 
Of mighty deeds." 
P. 34, 1. 263-270. As in the prosaic toilet of the Tartar leader, 
Peran-Wisa, so in the arming of Rustum, there is little to praise. 
Possibly the superb picture of the arming of Achilles (Book XIX., 
Homer's " Iliad ") made the critical poet falter: the caparisoning of 
Ruksh, which follows, is much more interesting. 



64 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

Page 34, Line 270. And Ruksh his horse. The story of Rustum 
and his horse is of itself a poem. The legend of Ruksh runs thus : — 

Rustum, in his youth, seeking a steed of strength, tried many horses 
till he found among the flocks of Cabul a wonderful, masterless, rose- 
colored steed who would suffer no one to mount him, until Rustum, 
the predestinated master, appeared, of whom it was predicted that 
upon the back of Ruksh he should save the world. 

Cf. the other famous horses in literature: as Xanthus, the horse 
of Achilles in the "Iliad;" Alfana, the horse of Gradosso in the 
" Orlando Furioso; " Aquiline, the steed of Raymond in " Jerusalem 
Delivered ; " Babieca, the horse of the Cid. 

P. 34, 1. 277. Dight. Anglo-Saxon, dibtan, to set in order. Cf. 
Chaucer, " Knight's Tale," line 183. " Deck " has probably the same 
derivation. 

" The clouds in thousand liveries dight." — Milton's " L' Allegro." 

P. 34, 1. 286. Bahrein. An island famous for its pearl fislieries. 
P. 34, 1. 288. Having made up his tale, etc. Anglo-Saxon, 
talian, to reckon. See also Ex. v. 8. 

" And every shepherd tells his tale 
Under the hawthorne in the dale." — Milton's " L'Allegro." 

P. 35, 1. 302. As some rich woman. The only simile that loses 
much by being unclassic, and bringing before the mind, in modern 
spirit, a modern drudge. 

P. 35, 1. 314. Like some young cypress. Vide Zimmern's " The 
Epic of Kings," p. 151. 

" Now, when he had looked upon the \)0j, he saw that he was like 
to a tall cypress of good sap ; and that his arms were sinewy and strong, 
like to the flanks of a camel; and that his stature was that of a hero." 

P. 36, 1. 321. And beckon'd . . . with his hand. A distinctly 
Teutonic idiom, illustrating Mr. Arnold's hereditary loyalty to German 
forms. 

P. 36, 1. 322-344. Here the text of the " Shah Nameh " is quite 
closely followed. It forms one of the finest pictures of the episode, in 
that the natural feeling of kinship fills the entire background. 

P. 36, 1. 328. Never was that field lost or that foe saved. 
An excellent example of powerful alliteration. 

P. 36, 1. 331. To Iran and be as my son to me. An undue num- 
ber of monosyllables renders the scansion of this line nearly impossible. 



NOTES. 65 

Page 36, Lines 341, 342. And he ran forward, etc. Note the 
Homeric form of expression of sympathy, too frequent in the " Iliad" 
to need especial illustration. 

Pp. 36, 37, 1. 346-362. In the original text, Sohrab's oj)ponent 
declares himself to be the slave or servant of Rustum. 

P. 37, 1. 376-379. Or else thy bones . . . all away. Cf. Milton's 
sonnet on the late massacre in Piedmont : — 

" Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold." 

P. 37, 1. 379. On his feet. One of the very few instances in which 
Mr. Arnold finishes a line with " words! words! " 

P. 38, 1. 381. I am no girl, etc. Cf. " Julius Caesar," Act I., Scene 
II. (Cassius) : — 

" Alas! it cried, ' Give me some drink, Titinius,' 
As a sick girl." 

P. 38, 1. 387. But yet success sw^ays with the breath of 

heaven. Cf . Addison's " Cato," Act I. : — 

" 'Tis not in mortals to command success. 
We will do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." 

P. 38, 1. 400-402. This descent of the hawk veers from scientific 
fact, as the hawk approaches its prey with a slanting swoop. 

Pp. 38, 39, 1. 408-410. The club rather than the spear is much more 
appropriately the weapon of this primitive warfare. Cf. the club of 
Hercules; the club of Periphetes, the robber of Argolis: in " Paradise 
Lost," Satan's spear suggests but a club — 

" to equal which the tallest pine 
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand." 

P. 39, 1. 412. Hyphasis or Hydaspes. The modern Beas and 
Zhitum, rivers of India. 

P. 39, 1. 420-426. Another Hebraic picture. Cf. Saul in the power 
of David. 1 Sam. xxiv. 

P. 39, 1. 427, 428. An easy transposition would save the construc- 
tion of these two lines from an amusing faultiness. 

Pp. 39, 40, 1. 430^47. " The lion knows the true prince ; " so, also, 
perhaps, would the lion-hearted, although Mr. Arnold only intends 
the reiteration of the effect of a kinship felt but not known. 



66 MATTHEW ABNOLD. 

Page 39, Line 434. Have waded foremost, etc. Cf. Shakespeare's 
" Macbeth," Act III., Scene lY. : — 

*' I am in blood 
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, 
Returning were as tedious as go o'er." 

P. 40, 1. 445. Champions enough Afrasiab has. As Haman 
and Barman. 

P. 40, 1. 458. Minion. Derived from the old High German minne, 
= love, and signifies a favorite, a servile dependant. 

P. 41, 1. 481-486. A distinctly Homeric imitation. Cf. the cloud 
that enveloped Paris, "Iliad," Book III., lines 465-469. See also 
Virgil's "^neid," Book I., lines 497-499; also Spenser's ''Faerie 
Queene," Book I., canto v., stanza 13. 

P. 41, 1. 489. And the sun sparkled. The clear stream of the 
Oxus gives intentional, pure relief at the most intense moment of the 
tragedy. 

P. 42, 1. 501, 502. And Ruksh, the horse, etc. The outcry of a 
sympathetic animal-servant is made much of in all old literatures. 
Cf. Balaam's ass. Num. xxii. ; and Achilles steed, " Iliad," Book XIX., 
lines 393-403. 

P. 42, 1. 516. And shouted: Rustum ! Cf. in Hebraic literature, 
" The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." — Judges vii. 18. 

P. 42, 1. 523-526. The most dramatic picture in the poem, before 
which the denouement of most tragedies would pale. 

Pp. 42, 43, 1. 527-539. Cf. these words of triumph with those of 
Sohrab (lines 427-448), when Rustum was temporarily in his power, — 
the one the words of a victorious warrior, the other those of a filial son. 

P. 43, 1. 538. Dearer to the red jackals, etc. Cf. " Come to me 
and I will give thy flesh iinto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts 
of the field." — 1 Sam. xvii. 44. 

Pp. 43, 44, 1. 556-575. Here occurs the finest simile of the poem, 
unsurpassed in conception and sustained power in nineteenth-century 
literature. 

P. 44, 1. 569-570. Never more shall the lake glass her. 
Suggests — 

" The swan upon St. Mary's Lake 
Floats double, swan and shadow." 

— Wordsworth's " Yarrow Unvisited." 



NOTES. 67 

Page 44, Line 580. Ah yes, he had, etc. A weak line, especially 
when contrasted with the strong lines which have preceded. 

P. 45, 1. 590. My mother who in Ader-baijan dwells. 
Tahmineh, the Tartar princess, who wooed and won Rustum during 
one of his adventures on the border between Iran and Turan. 

P. 45, 1. 610-614. The acceptance of this less worthy tradition, with 
regard to the sex of Sohrab, gives Mr. Arnold several opportunities 
like this for strictly Arthurian passages. 

P. 46, 1. 625. And that old king, her father. The king of 
Samengan. 

P. 46, 1. 626. His wandering guest. Rustum, hunting the wild 
ass on the borders of the Turanians, had his horse Ruksh stolen from 
him. He entered the city of Samengan to demand his own, and was 
taken captive by the beauty of the king's daughter Tahmineh. 

P. 46, 1. 626-631. Poetic license, by which the time that Rustum 
passed in the kingdom of the Turanians is greatly extended. 

P. 46, 1. 639. Lovely in death. Young's " Night Thoughts," III., 
line 104 : — 

" Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; 
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; 
Far lovelier ! pity swells the tide of love." 

P. 47, 1. 658-660. I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm, etc. This 
form of tattoo is not justified by the text, which tells us that 
Sohrab wore an onyx stone as an amulet. This onyx incited the 
wearer to deeds of valor, like those performed by Neriman, his 
ancestor. 

P. 47, 1. 676. Lights up his studious forehead, etc. Cf. lines 
85-90, Milton's ''II Penseroso; " also, " Hamlet," Act III., Scene I. : — 
" Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 

P. 47, 1. 679. It was that griffin, etc. Simurgh, the bifd of 
marvel, that fostered Zal when, on account of his white hair, he was 
rejected by his father, Saum. 

P. 48, 1. 691. O boy, thy father! This recognition in death is 
found also in the " Hildebraudlied," while Shakespeare uses it to 
illustrate the infinite sad confusions of the Wars of the Roses. See 
" Henry VI.," Part III., Act II., Scene V. 

P. 48, 1. 696. Fond, faltering fingers. Cf. line 669, "Weak, 
hasty fingers." 



68 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

Page 48, Line 706. But Sohrab saw his thought. Another 
Homeric phrasing. Bryant's " Odyssey," Book VI., lines 86, 87: — 

" He perceived 
Her thought, and said." 

P. 48, 1. 709. The doom which at my birth was written down. 

" Such is my destiny, such is the will of fortune. 
It was decreed that I should perish by the hand of my father." 

— ShAh NAmeh. 
P. 49, 1. 723, 724. I came . . . passing wind. " O remember that 
my life is wind." — Job vii. 7. 

" I came like a flash of lightning, and now I depart like the wind." 

— ShAh NAmeh. 

Pp. 49, 50, 1. 737-740. But Rustum chid him, etc. Contrast the 
chiding of Xanthiis by Achilles. "Iliad," XX., last ten lines. 

P. 50, 1. 742. Tradition says that Sohrab rode to this battle on a 
horse that was the colt that was sired by Ruksh. 

P. 50, 1. 751, 752. Helmund. A river of Afghanistan. 

P. 50, 1. 757. Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan. A Homeric 
memory of the " lofty halls " of Alcinous. " Odyssey," Book VIII. 

P. 50, 1. 763-765. Moorghab. A river of Afghanistan and Turk- 
estan, which, beyond the Merw, is lost in the sands. 

Tejend, now Tedzen. A river rising in the Persian province 

of Khorassan, and after two hundred and fifty miles is lost in the 
sands of the desert. 

P. 51, 1. 773, 774. Robert Browning, "La Saisiaz," line 199: — 
" Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike." 

P. 51, 1. 779. I pray thee slay not these. Zimmern's " The Epic 
of Kings," page 167 : — 

" The sword of vengeance must slumber in the scabbard. Thou 
art now leader of the host: return, therefore, whence thou camest, 
and depart across the river ere many days have fallen. As for me, I 
will fight no more: yet neither will I speak unto thee again, for thou 
didst hide from my son the tokens of his father, of thine iniquity thou 
didst lead him into this pit." 

P. 51, 1. 788. And heap a stately mound. Persian tradition says 
that a rich monument shaped like a horse's hoof was placed above 
Sohrab. 



NOTES. 69 

Page 52, Line 815. So thovi miglitest live too, my son, my 

son I Cf. "O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!" — 
2 Sam. xix. 4. 

P. 52, 1. 828. Thou dreadful man. The infrequent correct use 
of this word. Cf. " How dreadful is this place." Gen. xxviii. 17. 

P. 53, 1. 858. And the great Rustum drew his horseman's 
cloak. "Priam begging the body of Achilles" forms an excellent 
companion picture for its active passion contrasted with the passive 
despair of this. 

P. 54, 1. 8G8-871. Observe how natural life is resumed in the armies, 
and only to Rustum life and love are gone. 

P. 54, 1. 880. Orgunje. A village on the Oxus, twenty miles 
north-east of Khiva. 

Pp. 54, 55, 1. 875-892. The last eighteen lines form a poetical 
"anodyne draught of oblivion" for the tragic ending, which, for 
artistic i*easons, must have its redemption from pain. Peace after 
pain is the consummation of many of Mr. Arnold's verses. 



^^^ ^fu^mte' ^me0 of 

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editions of those authors used in or required for 
admission to many of the colleges, the publishers 
announce this new series. The following books are now 
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ARNOLD'S SOHRAB AND RUSTUM, and 
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A BALLAD -BOOK, and COLERIDGE'S 
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